In the aftermath of the training camp incident, Aizawa Shota was a restless man. The sight of his students injured and traumatized filled him with an overwhelming rage, and that was the fuel that kept him going in those two days after the battle. His inner fire kept burning while he was rescuing 1A and 1B students from the woods, while he was helping the firefighting efforts, and afterwards the investigation to locate Katsuki Bakugou, the young man that the villains kidnapped due to his negligence as a teacher, as a guardian, and as a hero.
Even though he had just been involved in a fierce battle against elite villains, he dismissed any argument about his need to rest and recover and insisted on taking double patrols shifts at the hospital, haunted by the weight lumping in his throat and stomach whenever he thought of getting away from his students in recovery.
He had been going without sleep for almost 48 hours when Hizashi threatened to forcefully admit him to the hospital as a patient if he did not take a break. Only then Eraserhead consented to go home to try to recuperate, and only on the condition that Mic would take his place for patrol duty at the hospital. The investigation was progressing fast, and major developments were expected later that day.
When he arrived home, he realized he needed a shower first. While he was in there, immersed in his racing thoughts, he suddenly turned the water jet to the coldest setting, on impulse. Clenching his teeth and enduring it until the point it became painful gave him a temporary sense of relief from his anger and helped him clear his mind. After getting his hair dry, he headed towards the bedroom, sure that it would be to no avail, as no rest could come for him in his current state of mind.
As he was changing into his pyjama, his imagination continued to serve him a gallery of terrifying images of young Bakugou restrained and tossed aside in some dark and dirty cellar, shivering form hunger and cold, sore from the fight at the training camp and from the beating and injuries he has surely sustained while resisting his captors, with dried blood on his face and limbs.
In the unbearable comfort of his warm and cosy home, Aizawa knelt beside the bed, his head buried in his hands onto the sheets, and started crying silently.
When Hizashi came home after his patrol shift, he found him asleep on the floor, desperately clinging to a pillow. He was agitated in his sleep and when Yamada tried to pick him up and lay him in bed, he woke up, disoriented. The expression in his eyes darkened, as the awareness of the past two days came back to him, merging with the recollection of the nightmare he just had, which was the manifestation of his worst fears about the well-being of young Bakugou. He began sobbing again, unable to control himself, physically and mentally drained. Yamada, overwhelmed at the sight of his broken partner, teared up as well. They hold each other tighter, unable to find words to alleviate their anguish. They stayed like this for a long time, pouring out all the tension, the fatigue, and the fear that was consuming them.
As anticipated, the investigation reached a turning point that day, and a rescue operation was planned for the night. At the news, Aizawa's trepidation became irrepressible, but then he learned that he had been relegated to Public Relations, to lull the villains into a false sense of security and take them by surprise. When they explained to him what he would be required to do, his frustration was about to explode. He wanted – HE NEEDED – to be at the front-line, not in a bloody press conference patronized by reporters who did not have the slightest idea of what they were really talking about.
But then another thought hit him. Was he so arrogant to really think that he was the right person to send to this fight? After all, he had already failed the boy once, right? On the other hand, this would give him a measure of what he deserved. He would go on national television and publicly take the blame for his shortcomings, as a hero and as a teacher. This was a different kind of front-line: he would be the target at which all public outrage and reproach would be directed. Exactly where it should be directed, he thought. Who else should be there to take the heat, after all? No, he thought after a while, this was exactly his part to play in this.
While he was getting ready for the press conference, nervously fixing his hair and adjusting his tie in the backstage, he realized just how terrible he looked. Not that he ever cared about his appearance, but in that moment he thought that his look seemed to very much reflect how he felt. In addition to the lack of sleep and his mental turmoil, most of his joints still hurt, partly from the aftermath of the battle, and partly from overworking himself and consciously and unconsciously refusing any bit of comfort he could have had in the previous days.
He breathed deeply and reassured himself that the best of the best had been gathered for this operation. He had the absolute confidence that they would bring the boy home. He just hoped with his whole being that they would get there in time. He clenched his fists, and with his humblest bearing, but fire in the eyes, he stepped outside to approach the press conference table, together with Principal Nezu and King Vlad.
They got Bakugou back, safe and sound. It was nothing short of a miracle that the boy was unharmed, Aizawa thought. In the process the true leader of the League of Villains had been exposed and the battle won by the forces of good. Many would consider the outcome to be a success on all accounts. But at what cost.
Aizawa was not so self-centred to think that he alone was responsible for it all, from the trauma of his students to the loss of the world's symbol of peace. But he was not delusional either, and could clearly recognize his role in the chain of events that lead to it. And this thought was crushing.
From his usual stern attitude, it was impossible to tell, but he was spiralling. He would engage in all the little ways he could mistreat himself without getting caught. He would take ice-cold shower every time, clenching his fists against the wall, to resist the temptation to turn the knob to a warmer temperature. He would postpone meals or skip them altogether whenever he could, and have the bite of hunger accompany him throughout the day. Whenever Hizashi was not home for the night, he purposely avoided the bed and just fell asleep in his sleeping bag on the floor wherever in the house. And he was burying himself into work like never before, not to be alone with his thoughts, and in the futile attempt to tire himself enough to be able to rest, a few hours at least, but the nightmares tormented him every night.
After the incident with Midoriya and Bakugou's night fight, while he was scolding them he could see so clearly in the young men's eyes glimpses of the same anguish that he was carrying around every day. And he was all too aware of the fact that he was directly responsible for his students' burden, not the other way around.
He knew very well what was happening to him. In the aftermath of the battle at Kamino, everyone's attention was directed towards the crisis in the hero world following All Might's retirement and the reconstruction effort. With all the changes that had taken place at UA, there had been a haste to move on and resume a semblance of normalcy in everyday school life. Most of the people seemed to have come to terms with what had transpired and be moving on, or at least making progress. Aizawa was not, he was stuck. He could not move on, because he couldn't accept his failure in the first place, and he couldn't accept how he could be allowed to just move on.
Apparently, assigning responsibility for those events was not necessary. Aizawa was never brought in front of a disciplinary committee for his negligence in the management of the training camp incident, no one ever even suggested it. No police investigation was undertaken into the circumstances that led to the villain attack to determine if it could have been prevented. Even the backlash from the media faded and he was quickly forgotten, the public interest being focused on the consequences of All Might's retirement.
Why had he not been punished? Why was everyone so ready to forget and forgive all the damage that resulted from his inadequacy? The rest of the world might not have cared to serve justice, but Aizawa found himself unable and unwilling to simply forgive himself. He needed to be held accountable, and to pay for his mistakes. Otherwise, how could he be worthy of his students' trust, which he had so spectacularly betrayed?
He knew that had given all that he could to avoid an even worse outcome at the training camp, but still he had made grave judgement errors during the battle, and in hindsight the safety measures he had put in place to prevent such an event were clearly just ridiculous.
And one thing was sure: they were not out of danger. The alert in the school was at its highest, and now more than ever he needed to be prepared and sharper than ever, to ensure the safety of his students. He needed to make it up to them for the ordeal that he was not able to shield them from. And the excuse of a teacher that he was right then was definitely not up to the task.
He could not go on like this. If nothing happened, he could not be at peace with himself, not now, not ever. The passage of time alone could not assuage his conscience. There needed to be consequences before he was able to move on. In the end the answer was so simple, he realized. If no one else was going to do it, then it had to be him.